Nevermore
by Slow to Dream
Summary: They say she dreams at night. About a dark, fantastical Dream-Land, a City in the Sea full of the Spirits of the Dead. She feverishly murmurs in her sleep; sweat-soaked confessions of Amontillado and broken mirrors. "Getting there," she whispers as she tosses and turns, "Getting there isn't the hard part. It's letting go." An Edgar Allan Poe inspired and themed fanfiction. Yullen.


**Title: **Nevermore

**Author: **Slow to Dream

**Fandom: **Katsura Hoshino's D. Gray-Man.

**Rating:** Tfor dark themes, violence, and excessive swearing.

**Pairing: **If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Allen x Kanda, Yullen, almost every pairing on this fandom…..

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Katsura Hoshino's D. Gray-Man, nor do I own any of her characters. Any stories, characters, plots, quotes, and horror mannerisms alluded to Edgar A. Poe's work strictly belong to the American horror-father, Edgar Allan Poe. I do not own any music, novels, games, and other devices of media and entertainment I will allude/downright steal titles and phrases from.

**A/N: **This is an Edgar Allan Poe themed and inspired Fanfiction. For the Halloween spirit. I don't own _Alone_ by Edgar Allan Poe.

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**Chapter 1 **

"**Alone"**

"_**From childhood's hour I have not been**_

_**As others were - I have not seen**_

_**As others saw - I could not bring**_

_**My passions from a common spring –"**_

—**Edgar Allan Poe, "Alone"**

* * *

"_Did you hear?"_

"_The girl, the girl."_

"_They say,"_

"_They say she killed her own father."_

"_She is,"_

"_She is undeniably mad."_

"_Mad, absolutely mad."_

* * *

Padded walls to protect her from herself. Allen took notice to these cushion walls as if she had seen them for the first time. That was a lie. A year it had been since her first visit, and her last. She knew she would never leave. For reasons beyond her, it irked her to view the walls.

The padded walls were stiff with cotton and the stench of disinfectant seeped in the air like a hostile cloud. The door was padded as well, and locked to "keep her safe". There were no windows here, no fresh air like back in her summer home, no smell of baking pies and the cool breeze that made the trees sing with their rustled leaves. Only the stench of loneliness here, loneliness and disinfectant and _madness_.

Sometimes she wanted to scream. Sometimes she wanted to tear everything around her to pieces in her righteous fury. But they told her that if she behaved, she would get to paint and draw. Not that she had a choice; the straightjacket around her caged her arms like she was a clipped bird. Given freedom at first, but callously ripped away from her.

But, at least she would get to draw.

* * *

"_Did you hear?"_

"_Did you hear?"_

"_She can paint,"_

"_The girl, yes,"_

"_Beautifully, almost as if…"_

"_She lives in a different world."_

"_A different world was made for her."_

* * *

Two hours a day she would get to taste freedom. Free to move her arms and create something out of nothing. She loved to paint; the beautiful strokes of colors took her away from the padded walls with its clipped wings and old smell. Sometimes, she would paint dark fantastical extensions of her mind; a handsome raven in the moonlight, a beautiful feline with half a pair of eyes, or a sleeping beauty under the midnight. She liked those; they were beautiful with their dark fantasy, their eerie beauty captured on paper and color.

But other times she would paint what she remembered, like Mana, and she would cry.

Pieces of her Old World would sometimes find themselves back to her. Like how much Mana loved to paint, especially when they were doing it together. Sometimes she would get a slice of crusty, old, processed apple pie for being good, and she would remember how Ms. Lotto used to add a pinch of extra sugar in her delicious home-made pies, just for her. When she would be allowed to walk outside for a brief time the warm sunlight and soothing breeze helped her escape the chilling artificial air conditioning of the institute, but captured her with memories of kites and parks and the smooth, crisp spring.

She loved and hated those memories.

Allen looked up from her usual daily escape into her mind. That meant that the medicine was working. She yawned, and like usual, felt that it would soon be time to sleep. There was no clock in her "room", no other decoration besides the white, but she could always tell. Something told her that she was right. She heard a firm knocking against her door and a gentle voice relaying that it was "lights out".

She hated when they said her name. Allen, do you want to go outside? You can start to paint now, Allen. Allen, stop that awful screaming before you wake the others. Allen, why won't you just stay still and let the medicine work? Allen, why won't you let us help you? Allen, why won't you _shut up and stop screaming_?

They spoke her name as if it was a raw, pulsing blister. Sometimes with care and great tact, as if she would get offended. Sometimes viciously, always half-screaming, as if it were poison spewing from their mouths, sullying their tongues and darkening their mouths. Was it odd for a girl, a girl of the age fifteen, to be called 'Allen'? What confirmed a name to belong to a sex, to be worth anything at all? If she was called anything different, would it matter?

In her opinion, she was a broken mirror, a shattered image. An image in front of her, yet shattered beyond recognition. And when she tried to look into the fragments, all she had were pieces of who she used to be.

Sighing lightly, Allen shuffled over to her bed. Falling down upon the white sheets heavily, she took notice of the rough fabric. She realized that these white sheets with this white bed was a coffin, a pure white cotton coffin. Pure and saintly white, like fresh-fallen snow, yet not so much. Past the hollow pale white was the faint crusty-yellow stain of imperfection and previous owners, scrubbed away half-heartedly.

Allen went to bed with thoughts of broken mirrors and clipped wings.

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**A/N: **Hopefully you guys liked this short little prologue. Please take the time to review, it really makes my day and I really do appreciate every single one. Any questions about this story, type up a review and I'll PM you the answer...if I can answer it.


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